1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information-processing apparatus and method for generating print data, for example, and more particularly to an information-processing apparatus and method for generating print data that can be submitted to a bookbinding process as post-processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are information-processing apparatuses such as personal computers for generating print data that have a spool function of saving document data with an intermediate code of a different format to the print data ultimately sent to the printing apparatus, prior to the print data being generated. With some of these information-processing apparatuses, the layout and the output order of pages can be changed when print data to be sent to the printing apparatus is generated from the document data saved in the intermediate code format. This function enables print data to be generated from document data set for bookbinding in a layout that takes into account the sequence of pages after binding. There are also information-processing apparatuses that have a variable printing function of predetermining a frame (area) in which variable data is to be inserted in saved document data, and inserting the variable data in the frame when print data is generated (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-296070).
There are also apparatuses that generate print data that assumes the use of a bookbinding device which performs bookbinding on a printed document. One mode of bookbinding is case binding, which involves wrapping the body with a sheet laid out with the data of the front and back covers, with a digital copying apparatus having been proposed that outputs the front cover and body for use in a case binding device (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-64453).
However, in the case where print data is generated from document data set for bookbinding by the information-processing apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-296070, print data compatible with case binding performed by a bookbinding device that is not an inline bookbinding device cannot be generated. An inline book-binding device incorporates a printing apparatus and performs bookbinding on a printed document output from the printing apparatus.
Also, the digital copier disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-64453 is not able to output a printed document compatible with a case-binding device which performs bookbinding on front cover and body sheets imported from separate setting locations.
FIG. 20 shows an example of bookbinding performed on front cover and body sheets imported from separate setting locations. In the case of binding N copies of a printed document, a book-binding device that is not an inline book-binding device accepts a stack 2001 of N front covers and N copies of the body 2002 output in collated form. Then, one front cover is imported from the stack 2001 of front covers, one copy of the body is imported from the body 2002, the body is cased with the front cover, and bookbinding is performed using staples or the like. Since the body and the front cover do not need to be set manually with an inline book-binding device, the bookbinding method shown in FIG. 20 is employed with an off-line bookbinding device that is not connected to a printing apparatus or with a near-line bookbinding device that may have a communication connection but does not incorporate a printing apparatus.
With the foregoing information-processing apparatus and digital copier, the front cover and the body that should be output as one copy cannot be output separately in collated form. Thus, if the case binding function of an off-line bookbinding device or a near-line bookbinding device is used, the output of the printing apparatus needs to be sorted into front cover and body before being set in the bookbinding device.
Heretofore, it was problematic to print the front cover and the body on separate printing apparatuses, such as printing the front cover on a color printing apparatus and the body on a monochrome printing apparatus, for example. Consequently, if printing had to be done on separate printing apparatuses, the user had to input a print instruction from the information-processing apparatus to each of the printing apparatuses and execute the printing as separate print jobs.
To generate separate print jobs as described above, the user selects the portion to print from the document data and instructs printing in relation to the selected portion. This method is disadvantageous in that it takes time and effort to specify the front cover and body from document data, and is also susceptible to error.